Chapin Library Displays Exhibit on Shakespeare
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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Williams College’s Chapin Library will host an exhibit marking the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare titled “‘While Thy Booke Doth Live’: Shakespeare and His World.”
The exhibit is located in room 406 of Sawyer Library through Oct. 11.
Its title is taken from a poem by Ben Jonson that appears in the famous 1623 First Folio collection of Shakespeare’s plays. Drawn from the rich holdings of the Chapin Library, the exhibit features works by Shakespeare in original editions, including all of the Folios, the 1640 edition of Shakespeare’s Poems, and late 17th-century printings and adaptations of some of his plays.
Also in the display are books which put Shakespeare in the context of English history and the theatres of London, works he used as source material for his plays, such as Holinshed’s Chronicles of 1577 and the 1579 North translation of Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, and writings by his contemporaries, such as Thomas Heywood and Christopher Marlowe.
“Williams is fortunate to have so many great books from the time of Elizabeth I and James I,” said Wayne Hammond, Chapin librarian. “While other institutions have borrowed a copy of the First Folio from the Folger Shakespeare Library to display this anniversary year, the Chapin Library already had all four of the Folios, as well as an important variant of the Third, thanks to the generosity of Alfred Chapin, Williams Class of 1869.”
The Chapin Library, part of Special Collections at Williams College, supports teaching and research through rare books, manuscripts, and other sources in their original form. Together with Williams College Archives, it maintains exhibition galleries in Sawyer Library that are open to the public, free of charge, Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
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